


Armstrong

by jerseydevious



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, listen kids damian's sick that's the entire fic is this the kush you're for or not, the joe chill of good writing declared me an enemy of the state and murdered me at quiznos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-04
Updated: 2019-01-04
Packaged: 2019-10-04 01:56:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17295494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jerseydevious/pseuds/jerseydevious
Summary: The unfortunate and universal truth about things that are terrible is that you can't go it alone, even if it's only a terrible stomach bug.





	Armstrong

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DawnsEternalLight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DawnsEternalLight/gifts).



> So usually I would put something like this in Yellow Submarines, my promptfic graveyard, but I wrote this all today and the thing that's unusual about that is that I haven't slept in three days, which isn't a fun internet exaggeration, it's a fun life fact. But somehow inexplicably I put this bad boy out, and I am fucking mystified? Flabbergasted? I might have superpowers?
> 
> So here have Damian being a very ill little tiny

Thirteen was a cursed age to be, at least as far as Bruce’s boys were concerned—and not necessarily because thirteen was the start of long and awkward high school years, but because it seemed it was the year they each decided to catch one hell of a stomach bug. Both Dick and Jason had been pretty hardy kids, otherwise, but they’d both been knocked flat for around a week and a half, around that same time early spring. Dick, even, had been sick on his birthday, and when his fever spiked he kept mumbling  _ please don’t eat my cupcakes, B  _ and _ you’re not gonna blow out my candles.  _ Originally it had mystified Bruce and Alfred both, because the closest Bruce had gotten to a stomach bug as a kid had been accidentally overdosing on the pills Aunt Agatha had left out when he was five—but by the time Jason nervously poked Bruce awake to mumble,  _ Bruce, m’sorry but I think I threw up on the sheets and, an’ I didn’t mean to I swear,  _ Bruce had an idea of what was to be done. He’d thought for a bit that Tim had broken the curse of thirteen—instead of catching it then, he caught it at seventeen, and he fought a great deal more against any care. He passed out, though, standing up in the kitchen, and Bruce had to catch him and carry him off to bed, and after that Tim stopped fighting tooth and nail. But unfortunately it seemed it only skipped a child. 

 

Bruce pulled into the Cave and the Batmobile’s headlights bounced off of the faces of brushed steel and damp stone. One by one the motion sensors triggered and the lights flicked on, but Bruce’s eyes were fixed on the space between the headlights—Bruce’s chair, and a small, curious little dark bundle there.

 

Bruce killed the engine and slid out of the driver’s seat. “Damian,” he called.

 

A sleep-mussed head popped up from the blanket, which Bruce quickly realized wasn’t a true blanket, but one of his spare capes pulled down from the utility closet. “Father,” Damian rasped. “I have… need to see. You.”

 

Bruce pushed back his cowl and then pulled off his gauntlets with his teeth, and dropped them on the Batmobile’s hood. He had to stand there with his palm pressed to the hood, for a minute, because of all the pieces of him that had been replaced with metal after Bane had broken him, it was his knee that was most sensitive to cold—his hip and the zippers in his pelvis and spine could keep warm, and even the titanium replacing a few of his ribs. But the knee would throw a fit. 

 

When the worst of the ache had wound down, Bruce pushed himself up and over to Damian, leaning against the back of the chair to look down at him. “Stand up for me,” he said, flicking a hand up. “Right there on the chair.”

 

Damian did, and there was no sharp commentary, just glassy half-mast eyes and him leaning hard against the cushion of the chair. 

 

Bruce cupped his head and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You’ve a temperature,” he said. He tugged at the cape Damian was wearing. “Chills. C’mon, hop up.”

 

Damian raised his arms and wrapped them around Bruce’s neck, and Bruce hefted him up so Damian was clutching him like a koala, and then Damian promptly threw up down Bruce’s back.

 

Damian made a choking, embarrassed noise, and Bruce rubbed his back and murmured, “Shh. You’re alright. I’ve got you.”

 

Bruce leaned over and pressed the intercom button. “Good morning, Al. Would you mind bringing a bucket and some towels to Damian’s room. Tylenol. And a couple bottles of water.”

 

“I take it Master Damian has fallen ill?”

 

“Stomach bug,” Bruce said.

 

“Oh, dear.”

 

Damian threw up twice again on the way upstairs, but it was caught mostly by Bruce’s cape. Alfred was waiting for them in Damian’s room, setting up bottles of water on the bedside table. Damian’s bed had been made perfectly, the corners thrown back.

 

“Lay a couple towels down,” Bruce said. Damian mewled something incomprehensible into his shoulder, and Bruce rubbed his back. “I know, son. It hurts. You’ll feel better soon.”

 

“Towels spread, sir,” Alfred said. 

“Going… to,” Damian mumbled.

 

It was an extremely impressive feat of teamwork that had Alfred sliding the small trash can into place just as Bruce flipped Damian and got him in front of it just in time. Bruce kept a hand rested on Damian’s back while he heaved, and he leaned in to murmur, “I’ve got you.”

 

“I left damp cloths on the bedside table, sir.”

 

Bruce sighed. “You’re a dream, Al.” He put his head closer to Damian’s ear. “Son,” Bruce said, softly. “Can I pick you up to put you to bed.”

 

There was no stubborn  _ I can do it, _ this time—just Damian desperately nodding his head. Bruce wrapped his arms around Damian’s torso and lifted, dropping him on the bed. Behind him, Alfred’s shoes clicked against the wood floor and grew distant.

 

“Roll on your side, for me,” Bruce said. 

 

Damian did, and for the first time Bruce got a clear look at his face—and it was smudged with vomit where he’d thrown up down Bruce’s back, and sweat was gathering along his hairline, but what caught Bruce in the stomach like a punch were the tears rolling down his cheeks.

 

“Mother would never do this,” Damian whispered.

 

Surely there was blood rushing out of him—surely someone had to have shot him, for all that hurt. Bruce pulled a damp cloth off of the table and gently wiped around Damian’s mouth. Damian’s eyes drifted shut, and something like lightning cracked through Bruce’s chest and he shoved down the memory of the last son whose closed eyes and pale face he had wiped ash and blood from—

 

“You live with me now,” Bruce said. “And this is how we operate. You and your brothers will be taken care of so long as I live.”

 

Damian looked like he was going to say something, and then his face twisted, and Bruce pulled the trash can over in an instant. The poor kid was exhausted. Bruce ended up bracing Damian with his arm so he wouldn’t pitch forward off the edge of the bed, and land face-first in his sick bag.

 

Bruce reached for a new rag and wiped off Damian’s mouth again with the corner. After an hour it seemed the vomiting had slowed, at least enough for Damian to lay back and breathe, so Bruce pressed his lips to Damian’s crown and sat back on his haunches, thinking. “How well do you think you can keep something down.”

 

Damian’s eyes flickered beneath their lids, but he didn’t open them. “Yes,” was all he said. 

 

“I don’t like your fever,” Bruce said, by way of explanation. He measured out a cup of Tylenol and tipped it into Damian’s mouth—it seemed like Damian hardly noticed. Bruce tilted Damian’s head back to the side, flat on the towel Alfred had laid out. An image was clawing at the back of his mind of Damian choking on his own vomit, but if Bruce dwelled on it even a second long enough to try and reason it away, he’d never forget it. 

 

There were steps behind him, light and purposeful. Bruce twisted around. “Where in the hell did you—ah.”

 

Cloth shopping bags hung from Alfred’s wrists. “A few things were needed, sir,” he said, dropping them to the floor. Alfred pulled out a box of saltines first. “Breakfast,” he said, setting it down on the (admittedly crowded) bedside table. “Further Tylenol. I also endeavored to buy a set of glass straws, knowing Master Damian's affinity for green thinking. Heaven knows they will be broken here shortly."

 

Bruce offered a wan smile. "It's the thought that counts."

 

Alfred flicked his hand to the open doorway. "Go. See to it that you avoid dragging muck on my floors. I'll keep watch of your boy."

 

"It won't be ten minutes."

 

"It had ought to be at least fifteen," Alfred said. "Don't believe you will avoid dinner tonight as well. I've prepared a sandwich for you, I left it in your rooms."

 

Bruce grumbled a wordless, mindless complaint, and rose—and then briefly the world went gray like colored rubbed out of a piece of paper and his leg twisted like a hydra had dropped fangs into it, and the edges of his vision were black and crawling forward.

 

An arm strong and thin like steel had snaked behind his back, keeping him upright. "Stand tall, Bruce."

 

Bruce shifted, balancing his weight back onto himself. "Always," he said.

 

Alfred looked at him, intensely, and then whatever moment he was having scuttled away as fast as it came. "When you return I'll fetch your compression sleeve. Ice or heat, sir."

 

"I can get it," Bruce said. "I'll be up. You need to be in bed soon, if you've a meeting with the gardners tomorrow—er, today."

 

"And I will be, or do you think making a run downstairs will take the next few hours?" Alfred asked. He grasped Bruce by the shoulder and pointed towards the door. "Off with you. You're putting off a stench."

 

Bruce left his costume on the floor of his shower and took the fastest shower he possibly could, and wrapped the sandwich Alfred had made for him in a napkin and ate it as he went down the hallway. He peered in through the open door, cautious in case of the event that Damian might have already fallen asleep, but Alfred turned to him with hurt eyes and said slowly, "He has need of you."On the bed, Damian was curled up even from the doorway Bruce could hear his whining and hitching breathing. 

 

Bruce nodded, and jerked his thumb back to the hallway. "Yeah. Yeah, I've got him. Go sleep. You have a lot of gardeners to yell at, don’t you."

 

Alfred patted his shoulder as he passed. "I'll bring your sleeve, sir, and the heating pad."

 

Bruce's hand rose to squeeze Alfred's. "Thank you."

 

Then Alfred was walking down the hall. He’d washed and cleaned the trash can, and reorganized the bedside table so there was more room, and set out a freshly washed glass straw in the bright blue that Damian loved best.

 

The quiet tears from earlier had morphed into a full-body, broken sobbing—the kind Damian was only capable of when truly forced out of his mind. Bruce's heart ached like someone had taken and axe and cleaved it in two, and for the second time that night, he was genuinely shocked that there wasn't blood pouring down him, for all the pain he was in. Bruce hefted Damian up, as if he were holding a work hand-blown glass, and settled in on the bed. Damian’s hands made little fists in Bruce’s sweatshirt like Bruce might disappear any minute. 

 

Damian's sobbing had taken on a high keening—and sometimes he'd stop breathing entirely, almost scared to make a sound, and his face would twist into a horrible silent scream like he'd been stabbed but no one could know. Bruce rocked him back and forth and clucked his tongue, occasionally murmuring  _ you're safe, sweetheart. _ He swept Damian's tears away as fast as they came but it Damian just kept howling like a wolf with its vocal cords cut.

 

"I see trees of green," Bruce sang, his mouth half-pressed into Damian's hair. "I see red roses too, I see them bloom for me and you. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

 

Damian startled so hard he coughed, and Bruce thumped his back. "I am not a child," Damian hissed. "I do not need—a lullaby."

 

"It's not a lullaby. It's a very popular song."

 

Damian huffed, but he turned his head and rubbed his face into Bruce's chest. Bruce raised a hand and rubbed his hair.

 

"Mother wouldn't," Damian said, voice just a hair's breadth from silent. "I—Father. I'm not good."

 

How much blood could a man bleed in one night, Bruce wondered. "If you are not good," Bruce said, "then I think we should be not good. You have kindness in every inch of you. You are good. You deserve to be here. The things you have done are things you were forced to."

 

"Why," and Damian's voice cracked, broke, "why can't I—stop knowing. Thinking."

 

He squeezed Damian, for a moment just basking in the warmth of his lingering fever and how very unlike the chill of death it was, how very glad he was to have this boy here in his arms and so wonderfully alive. Bruce himself had lived through some virulent fever dreams, and he could only imagine what it was that Damian was seeing that was hurting him quite that badly, but at least—at least it could heal.

 

"It hurts," Bruce said, simply. "And it won't stop. There will be days when it aches. But those days will be few and far between. It will take time but there will be days that you wake up and don't notice it at all."

 

"Like your leg."

 

Bruce stopped.  _ A hell of a kid, _ he thought, and then he said, "Yes. Like my leg. I had a knee replacement. And today it aches, and we treat it, so tomorrow it won't. I have to make you drink something, now, son."

 

Damian's no was muffled by Bruce's sweatshirt, but Bruce leaned over and cracked open a blue Gatorade and dropped the glass straw into it.

 

"A couple sips," Bruce said. "That's it."

 

Damian groaned, a tiny little weak groan, but he took two big gulps and then pulled a face like he'd licked a block of salt.

 

"So that's enough of that," Bruce said, dropping the bottle on the table. "Rest, now."

 

For five minutes there was an artificial silence where Damian faked the deep breathing of sleep and Bruce pretended not to notice. Then Damian said, "If—you... I—"

 

"Shh," Bruce cut him off with. "I see skies of blue, and clouds of white, the bright blessed day, the dark sacred night. And I think to myself, what a wonderful world."

 

It truly didn't take long at all for Damian to fall sound asleep, snoring from where his face was pressed into Bruce's chest at an angle.

 

"Thanks for waiting outside," Bruce whispered to the empty doorway.

 

"But of course," Alfred replied—he'd changed into his nightclothes, probably when he'd first come back to drop off the sleeve and heating pad and had realized what conversation, exactly, was being had.

 

Alfred lifted up Bruce's leg by the heel and rolled the sleeve up and over the raised, straight scars that crawled over Bruce's knee, and then he dug around the side of Damian's bed and plugged in the heating pad, tossing it on Bruce's lap.

 

"I'm off," he said. "I've left Master Dick a message. He should be by some time tomorrow, to give you a chance to rest yourself. He'll be alright, Master Bruce."

 

"He's a tough one." Bruce closed his eyes and swallowed back a yawn. "Thanks, Al."

 

Alfred smiled. "Of course." But that wasn’t all he had to say, apparently, because he stopped with a hand resting on the door frame and said, “You know that I had my reservations, when you first brought home Master Dick. I made them very clear. I feared the worst. But you surprised me. And you surprised me again with young Master Jason—I watch you transform for each of these children, into what they need. You continually surprise me.”

 

As he left he flicked off the lamp, and Bruce was alone with Damian's warmth and Damian's soft breaths. For a long time all he could focus on was that, the living boy he held in his arms, because any thought more difficult than simple mindless love was damn near impossible. Eventually Bruce had the strength to lean his head back, close his eyes and hum, _ I hear babies crying, I watch them grow, they'll learn so much more than I'll ever know. _

**Author's Note:**

> I hope it was enjoyable! Remember, any typo is just like, definitely not my fault. Definitely not.
> 
> Edit: Forgot to mention. I mention Bruce's like, Really Bad internal situation. I know that Knightfall had Shondra basically dying to magically fix Bruce's Really Bad situation, but that makes be really uncomfy because she's a black woman and you know that changes the tone of things. So instead I chose the fun angst option and was like, he had a series of really experimental, not-safe-in-the-least surgeries and only survived because the Batman Clause means Batman survives anything.


End file.
